Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a display control apparatus and a control method for the same, and more particularly to a display control apparatus using a touch panel and a control method for the same.
Description of the Related Art
In recent years, an increasing number of devices have a display unit equipped with a touch panel, in order to achieve effects such as securing a large display area without enlarging the device and realizing intuitive operation. With a device having a display unit equipped with a touch panel, the sense that the user is directly operating graphical user interfaces (GUIs) displayed on the display unit with his or her finger or the like can be provided, given the correspondence between input coordinates on the touch panel and image coordinates on the display unit.
For example, when a screen containing a plurality of menu items is displayed, the user can be provided with the sense of directly operating menu items on the screen, by performing operations with a menu item corresponding to input coordinates detected on the touch panel as the selected menu item.
When operating GUI items on a touch panel, users mostly use a finger. Since a fingertip is much larger than the tip of a mouse cursor, selecting a desired item from densely arranged GUI items is not easy. Thus, there are apparatuses using a touch panel that prevent erroneous operation by increasing the size of selectable GUI items or opening up space between adjacent GUI items. In this case, the number of GUI items (menu items, thumbnail images, etc.) that can be displayed on one screen is less than a device in which GUI items are operated using a pointing device such as a mouse.
In the case where there are thus items that do not fit within one screen, scrolling the display of the screen in correspondence with a drag or a flick operation is also known, although it is not always easy to perform a drag or a flick so that a desired screen is displayed.
In the case where the display of the menu screen is cyclically scrolled, a configuration that enables the boundary position between the top of the menu and the end of the menu to be grasped, by momentarily stopping scrolling of the screen at the boundary portion between the top and the end has been proposed (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-252366).
However, with the method described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-252366, there is a problem in that since scrolling of the screen momentarily stops when the menu has been scrolled through once, users who want to pass quickly through the boundary may become frustrated. Also, this becomes even more of a problem in the case of wanting to provide a plurality of boundaries.
One alternative method to stopping scrolling is to design the screen so as to make the boundaries more visible. For example, conceivable methods include demarking the boundary with a conspicuously colored line or changing the color scheme of display items in adjacent areas. However, there is a problem in that limits are placed on screen design.